Owner Franz Guest said he's thinking about staying open until 2:30 on the weekends, now that he's hired experienced manager Amelia Curtis.
He fries eggs with swift precision. He makes the campus-renowned “J.B.” sandwich. He greets every customer with a smile.
He’s that dude in the Laundromat. People know him.
He’s Franz Guest, owner of Franz’s Food. Franz has been a fixture on Main Street for the past eight years, serving an original selection of breakfast items, sandwiches, burgers, and fries to Durham locals and hungry UNH students.
And he doesn’t sit still.
This week, Franz is making some notable changes to his extensive menu. He’s adding three new breakfast sandwiches to a brand-new menu display. His credit card machine now operates through an Internet connection, resulting in speedier food purchases. And he’s even contemplating a return to late-night service, something he hasn’t done for years.
“I have a new manager,” Franz said, explaining this year’s onset of innovation. He said that was the first step in attracting enough employees. Only now has he begun toying with the idea of a late-night service for the college crowd, something he’d rather not do on his own.
“It’s like pulling an all-nighter night after night,” said Franz of the proposed 2:30 a.m. closings on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.
If attempted, Franz said he would plan on selling breakfast items – ham and egg sandwiches, the “J.B.” – along with hot dogs, fried chicken, fries, and coffee. The coffee would be a “big public service,” as far as Franz is concerned.
“I think late nights are a good idea,” said Franz’s new manager Amelia Curtis, 20. “I don’t see why drunk UNH students wouldn’t want a J.B. in the morning.”
Franz hired Curtis last August. A lifelong Durham resident, Curtis has worked at a number of downtown shops and restaurants, including the Durham Marketplace and a stint managing Young’s restaurant.
The three new sandwiches will be introduced on the new menu by Saturday, Franz estimated.
“This is a big thing for me,” Franz said. “The menu board used to be all paper, now it’s vinyl. It’s more professional.”
The “Dr. G., “G.B.L.T.,” and “Annie’s Big Beef,” all combinations dreamed up by Franz and his staff, each have unique ingredients and creation methods.
The “Dr. G.” consists of fried tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, garlic, an egg with melted cheese (“preferably cheddar,” Franz suggested), bacon, ham or sausage and hots on a flame-grilled bagel (plain or sesame).
“It’s good for you,” Franz said. “Those hots’ll cure ya. You could make mace from this.”
The “G.B.L.T.” —also known as the “Great bacon, lettuce, and tomato” sandwich is a classic B.L.T. with cheddar cheese and cucumbers.
“Because only your taste buds should discriminate,” Franz said.
Finally, “Annie’s Big Beef”, named after a worker, is made of peppers, onions and grilled roast beef, cooked on the grill with onions and covered with cheddar, ranch, and barbeque sauce on a fresh baguette.
“This is nice, dense, thick bread,” Franz said. “Others go up in flames in seconds. I went looking for the best breads before I opened.”
A repeated chart topper on the “New Hampshire’s Best” list, Franz was also listed as one of the television show Phantom Gourmet’s “eight best sandwich shops in the Boston area” this year. The sign sits behind one of the swinging glass doors in his tiny kitchen at the entrance of the Laundromat.
Customers start lining up when he opens at eight a.m. every weekday. The line disappears only when he shuts down at 6 p.m. And he’s a favorite of the weekend hangover crowd, dishing up an excess of “J.B.” sandwiches to grateful students.
Franz is sure his “J.B.,” named after a student, who consistently ordered the combination of fried eggs, bacon, cheese, hash browns, and ketchup in a flour tortilla, is the most popular sandwich on campus.
“We sell more of those than any other sandwich altogether,” Franz said. He believes his attention to detail (he flame-grills every bagel, individually fries every onion listed in the menu, tailors different items on a customer-to-customer basis) sets him apart from everyone else.
“It motivates me when people walk through the doors and say ‘thank you,’” he said. “They notice the difference.”
For more scoop on the latest at Franz’s, visit his blog at http://franzsfood.blogspot.com/
Comments
Be the first to comment on this article!
Poll
Does UNH need to change its class registration process?
Diwali Celebration 2009
Diwali, the Indian festival of lights, was celebrated with dancing and dinner on Nov. 15 at a sold-out event in the GSR..
On the Spot Video!
On the Spot, an old stand-by in the print edition, is now on video! Check for a new video every Friday.
Mr. UNH Video
Phillip Parker was recently crowned Mr. UNH in the Granite State Room.
If you read on their facebook page for the stolen sign they accuse them of taking it. I just think that the blame game has gone too far on this campus and people see fraternities as a good scape goat. Yes some do some shady stuff, but at the same time one cannot instantly blame them. "They think it was maybe a fraternity stunt or scavenger hunt of some kind." - taken directly from their facebook page. I do hope that your sign does get returned because I understand how iconic it is for the university and the MUB.
It is time the faculity sucked it up like the rest of us on campus. This year staff over $40,000 received no raise, faculity received 5.5%. Take the 1.5% and be happy. Do You remember why you became a professor? I hope, to pass your knowledge on to the next generation. Some of you look like greedy individuals who can only think of the God almighty dollar and not the students you teach and mentor. If we keep increasing out tuition to pay for salaries students will look at other schools and then where will you be, on the street.
I don't think it's fair to compare UNH to UMass (Amherst, I assume) and UConn. Both those schools are considerably larger than UNH — 26,000 and 20,000 undergrads, respectively — while the other schools mentioned are closer to UNH's size, give or take 3,000 students. Massachusetts and Connecticut are also feeling the effects of the recession slightly more than NH is. I realize that UNH commonly uses those schools as comparators, but those two are just on a different level than our school.There are two other things I'm going to look up before I decide how I feel about this. First, how does the average UNH professor's salary compare to to other universities? It's probably in line with other schools, but if it's significantly lower, shouldn't UNH profs get that too? As some have said, if the pay is lower here, professors can quit and go to other schools — if they can find an open position somewhere else. But, if a professor leaves, the school will be left in the position of trying to attract a new teacher with lower-than-average salaries. Enact the raises and UNH remains competitive in keeping and hiring the best professors.Second, what percentage of UNH's budget goes toward paying the professors? Again, this could be that the professors are asking the university to dedicate an equal amount to paying educators at UNH as they are paid at other schools. If UNH only dedicates 15% of the budget to prof pay and the other schools all dedicate 20%, why shouldn't that be changed? Not to sound Beck-ian, but I don't know and that's something that should be looked at.Neither of those questions deal with the larger problem of education funding from the state, which I think was something like 2 percent (and that's for all schools, not just colleges). California students staged huge protests yesterday because fee hikes raised they amount they pay per year for school to around $11,000. Meanwhile, that's close to what UNH students have been paying for tuition alone for years, and it continues to rise. If Governor Lynch and our state reps don't start working to increase education funding in the state, all the groups involved, students, professors and administration, need to start showing the kind of outrage that California showed yesterday.
The whiny, lazy, faculty all need to get fired. I haven't seen a more wanna-be-entitled bunch anywhere I have worked. They don't deserve any raises, but instead a pay cut. The rest of the staff had a mandatory salary freeze that will last probably 2 years at least. Faculty also get the bonus of cheaper benefits than the rest of the staff. To top it off they are whiners and complainers about anything not in their contract or if they feel the least bit slighted by the administration. They got out of taking mandatory sexual-harrassment training that everyone else on staff had to take, since somehow their union filed a grievance with the administration that it wasn't required in their contract. The entire training was online and took less than an hour but that's too much for those slackers. Tenure indeed is the only thing that keeps many of them employed, and it's a concept that needs to get thrown out. Many of them are dead wood, not bringing new ideas to the table and too 'busy' to try anything new, despite having many grad assistants and others to do all their real work, and the most over the top support structure of any organization I have seen. Yet their greed continues unchecked! Ugh! Good riddance!
How quickly things change. Just last week, when editorializing about a group of campus perverts, the attitude of the editors was: "we also don’t think it’s any of our business to judge an organization just because their activities are a shock to our system." Seven days ago we were advised to "shackle our judgment" and told that the campus S&M crowd "deserves respect." Now, a mere week later, when the same editorial board concludes that the UNH faculty union's collective bargaining position is "shocking," what do the editors do? Take their own advice and "shackle their judgment?" Offer respect to the faculty? Conclude that the negotiations are none of their business? No, none of these. Instead, the hypocritical editors tell "whining" and "greedy" faculty they are lucky to have a job, and should be satisfied with whatever the administration considers to be a fair offer -- because, presumably, the administration ALWAYS tells the truth about university finances, and ALWAYS treats the employees of the university fairly.Why not spend some effort actually learning the facts regarding the financial situation of the university -- revenues from the state, tuition increases, higher enrollments, grant money? Why not report on the value of the faculty and the university as an economic engine for the state? Why not investigate both the enormous increase in administrative salaries and the bloated growth in new administrative positions over the last two decades? Why not write about the relative compensation of your faculty compared to those with similar education, training, and experience in other fields? I guess these tasks were too challenging. It's just easier to call faculty names. Everybody loves free-market capitalism as long as the managers and administrators get to call the shots and the workers remain docile and content with whatever the bosses decide they deserve. But, when workers assert their rights and engage in labor negotiations as equals -- well, that is just unacceptable to our enlightened editorial masters. You're all doing a great job of learning how to be corporate lap dog journalists. Oh, and you spelled "principal" incorrectly.
 "Photo: Keeley Smith")
Be the first to comment on this article!